Wednesday, October 12, 2011

A couple of my recent posts and comments have brought forth an invitation to discuss the concept of fairness. Are we being fair to wealthy people to ask that they make some contribution to closing the deficit?

Let me begin with a few basic claims about fairness.

(1) 'Fairness' is a moral concept. A moral person is fair. A person who is unfair is doing something that a moral person would not do.

(2) Since it is a moral concept, 'fairness' must relate to reasons for action that exist. There must be reasons for action that exist for creating a state in which people are fair, and reasons for action that exist for avoiding a state of unfairness. Reasons for action that do not exist have no relevance to the question of what is fair or unfair.

(3) Desires are the only reasons that exist.

I am not going to use this post to defend desirism - I have written quite a bit on that subject throughout this blog. Here, I will only seek to apply the principles of desirism to the concept of fairness. In short, this is the idea that moral evaluations ultimately aim at evaluating malleable desires as those that people generally have reason to promote through praise or inhibit through condemnation.

(4) Since 'fairness' relates states of affairs to reasons for action that exist, and desires are the only reasons for action that exist, we must assess 'fairness' by examining its relationship to desires.

(5) As a moral concept, we are relating 'fairness' to malleable desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote using social tools such as praise and reward, and seeking no relation to malleable desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit. Again, this is all defended in a general discussion of desirism.

(6) 'Fair' not only identifies a state as one that a person with good desires would seek to realize, but also serves as to praise for those who would act to realize that state. In this way, it acts to promote the desires responsible for creating such a state.

(7) 'Unfair' not only identifies a state as one that a person with good desires would seek to avoid realizing, but also serves to condemn those who would act to realize that state. In this way, it acts to inhibit the desires responsible for creating such a state.

So, ultimately, I get to the conclusion that to treat somebody fairly is to treat him as a person with good malleable desires (desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote) and lacking bad malleable desires (desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit) would treat that person.

What would a fair trial look like? It is a trial that a person with good desires, and lacking bad desires, would design.

Now, let's apply this to the case of dividing a cake among a group of six-year-olds who are all pretty much equal. The person with desires we have the most and strongest reason to promote would likely give each an equal share. But we also have reason to give people a desire to consider those who would benefit more from a slice of cake - and this who would not benefit much at all (because they already have 154,598 cakes to eat).

In comments I mentioned a case in which a boat sinks and one person ends up with 10 life jackets, one person has 1 life jacket, and 9 people have no life jackets. The concern for others that people generally have reason to promote would seek a state of redistributing the life jackets so that each person has at least one.

We use the terms 'unfair' and 'selfish' to condemn those individuals that would hoard life jackets and inhibit the desires that would lead to this behavior. Actually, our moral condemnation would be stronger than that. And if he were to take 8 life jackets and auction them off to the highest bidders, we would have utter contempt for such a person - for good reason.

We call the state of affairs in which each agent gets at least one life jacket 'fair' to promote desires that would motivate agents to realize this state.

Does fairness require an equal distribution of all assets?

No. After people have been raised up to a particular state where they have no particular need for a resource, it is unfair to take from somebody any surplus that the person may have acquired for themselves. We want to condemn this interest in taking more than what is needed because we do not want to destroy the incentive to create a (desire-fulfilling) surplus.

Yet, this does not imply that we have no reason to condemn the person who decides to do nothing when his well-being is secure and his small efforts will provide major benefits for others.

Similarly, even in a state in which there just is not enough to go around, we have reason to promote an aversion to taking so much from another that we take away their means of obtaining some basic level of food, shelter, and health.

I would like to contrast this to the libertarian concept of fairness. This concept is built upon a myth that intrinsic values exist and that it is unfair to take property from others when that act violates these imaginary intrinsic moral properties.

Libertarianism shares the idea that "fair" is what there are reasons for action to bring about, and "unfair" is what there are reasons for action to avoid. Its problem rests with the make-believe reasons for action that it relies on in determining what states to bring about or avoid.

Desires exist. We see them operating around us constantly, providing a whole host of reasons for intentional action that both explain and allow us to predict a great many every-day events - the behavior of intentional agents.

But the libertarian conclusions about fairness are false, because the libertarian reasons for action are not limited to reasons for action that exist.

Do you want to prove that the wealthy are being treated unfairly? Then prove that a person with good desires will not prefer that the money that pays for government services come from the rich. And prove that those desires are good, not because they are in agreement with some imaginary supernatural oughts, but because they are desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote using tools like praise and condemnation. Prove that people generally have many and strong desire-based reasons to condemn the motivation behind such an act. Then, you have proved that taxing the rich is unfair.

Tomorrow, I will look specifically at the issue of taxing the rich and answer the question of how much I would have taken, and for what.

5 comments:

Jesse Reeve
said...

To treat somebody fairly is to treat him as a person with good malleable desires and lacking bad malleable desires would treat that person.

This definition of "fair treatment" seems identical to desirism's definition of "good treatment." Perhaps there is a difference that I've overlooked, but if not, what is the value of turning "fair" into a mere synonym for "good?"

Furthermore, that definition doesn't match the common usage of "fair." For instance, in The Dark Knight, the Joker tells Harvey Dent, "You know the thing about chaos: it's fair" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRG1tWQN6e8&t=217 ). Dent and the audience understand the Joker's point, but obviously he doesn't mean anything like your desirist definition of "fairness!" Common usage (reflected by dictionaries as well as supervillains) is closer to concepts like "evenhandedness" and "impartiality."

By the common-usage definition, an action can be "fair" in one sense but not another. For instance, a flat tax is "fair" in the sense that everyone pays the same fraction of their income, but "unfair" in the sense that said fraction represents a very different marginal utility for rich vs. poor. This seems to correspond with the way that people argue over whether flat taxes are "fair."

Morally speaking, I would say that there is no particular obligation to be "fair" in this sense at the expense of "good." We live in an unfair world, where wealth, intelligence, influence, and many more factors that determine opportunity are distributed unevenly; in such a world, "good" policies will often be "unfair." And I can't help but notice that the people who cry "unfairness!" to policies that put them at a disadvantage seldom object as vocally to unfairness biased in favor of their interests.

Luke Meuhlhauser and I have put a lot of stress that the project of coming up with the best super-dictionary definition of a term is not a worthwhile project. Language is an invention and, as such, can be redesigned to be better or worse. Furthermore, no two people learn exactly the same language.

The task of coming up with an account of every different user's understanding of the word "fair" would not fit into a book, let alone a blog posting.

So, yes, there are uses that mean something like "evenhandedness" or "impartial" - but those definitions are not action-guiding and, as such, are not relevant to the current discussion. Quite simply, "fairness" not tied to reasons for action that exist are not relevant to how we should act.

Still, “fair” in the sense described here sense would not be a mere synonym for “good”. Instead, it would be a species of the genus "Good" - which makes sense. "Good" covers a lot of different types of relationships - some moral, some not. The assessment of "good weather", for example, is not a moral assessment.

Even here, as I said above, people who have different ideas of what reasons for action exist will have a different idea of what is fair. Furthermore, each of us can grasp the idea that "If this subset here were the only reasons for action that exist, X would be fair. But measured against those other reasons for action that exist, X would be considered unfair." This is a common fact about relational properties, in the same way that Jim can be taller than Sally and shorter than Marcia at the same time.

And, yes, people tend to demonstrate bias in their own favor when they talk about fairness. People are more vocal about injustices against themselves than injustices against others. That is how people are.

The project of coming up with the best super-dictionary definition of a term is not a worthwhile project.

How about just a regular dictionary definition? Is creating a dictionary not a worthwhile project?

You can define words any way you like, of course, but if your definition doesn't match common usage, you may find communication to be squid-underline spiraled.

So, yes, there are uses that mean something like "evenhandedness" or "impartial" - but those definitions are not action-guiding and, as such, are not relevant to the current discussion. Quite simply, "fairness" not tied to reasons for action that exist are not relevant to how we should act.

It seems premature to simply assert that amoral concerns of evenhandedness and impartiality are "not action-guiding." For instance, a judge is expected to apply the law evenhandedly and impartially, regardless of whether he considers the law to be good. A pharmacist is expected to distribute RU-486 to a woman with a prescription for it, regardless of whether she considers the use of RU-486 to be good. And this system is considered better than one in which judges and pharmacists are free to act based on their personal beliefs. Furthermore, many moral concerns seem to be closely bound to concerns of evenhandedness and impartiality; otherwise I doubt the word "fair" would even have come up in this discussion in the first place, when "good" (understood by everyone to be meant in a moral sense) would have done the job.

At any rate, if you believe that "fairness" in the common-usage sense of evenhandedness and impartiality is irrelevant to discussing subjects like tax burden and global warming, then it seems to me that the proper answer is to simply say so, rather than create your own personal definition of fairness.

"Good" covers a lot of different types of relationships - some moral, some not. The assessment of "good weather", for example, is not a moral assessment.

I find this amusing in light of your recent focus on global warming. If there is no moral component to the weather someone experiences, then how can it be morally vicious to inflict bad weather on someone else? You may also recall weather being given a moral aspect in the atheistic argument from natural evil: a good deity would not create a world where people could be harmed by the weather, earthquakes, etc.

Perhaps "good weather" is a moral assessment only insofar as weather can be controlled by agents, and you meant weather that is not controlled by agents and thus not subject to moral assessment. But then it seems that you are equivocating between different definitions of "good." You might as well bring up "canned goods" and point out that Campbell's soup has nothing to do with fairness.

@ alonzo it seems to me you claimed fairness to be equivelant to the ethical good i.e. that which a person with good desires would do. is this correct?

i tried switching fair and morally good in sentences to see if they were equivelent or if they had different meanings like jesse claims.

1. to be fair you should wear a helmet in football

2. a person with good desire would want people to wear a helmet when playing foorball

3. it is good to wear a helmet when playing football

i think your right... the concept of fairness did not add anything or lack anything different from the concept of moral good.

@ jesse in order to communicate common definitions are usefull. but i think this does a good job of explaing the normal definition of fairness as a synonym for what is morally good.

(i am going to equivocate chaos and random chance, i think this is accurate...)quite frankly the joker was wrong. chaos is not fair. random chance of birth parents doesn't make income inequalities at birth "fair" merely becuase they were randomized. When choosing from all the possible states of rules that could exist; randomizing which rules are applied is very unlikely to create a "fair" set of rules. i would say that the joker's statement makes no sense (but it sounds cool). furthermore chaos isn't evenhanded, probability is weighted. which side of the coin is heavier, which sports team practiced harder, physics in general, etc.

furthermore i can think of instances where even handedness is not "fair" in the common usage. in the criminal court system a person is inocent until proven guilty. that is not even handed, that is clearly meant to bias the jury in favor of the defendent. it doesnt say assume a nuetral position and then weigh the evidence. it says assume innocence. this is not evenhanded to the prosecuter who has to fight an up hill battle but it is still "fair" as it is used commonly.

when we ask what is fair in this situation we are asking what is the right thing to do in this situation.

like your example with the flat tax. the question: is it fair to impose a flat tax? the question is asking whether or not it is right (morally good) to impose a flat tax. citing a reason to support it and a reason to oppose it does not mean that a flat tax is both fair and unfair. it means that those are two things we have to take into account when deciding if something is fair or not. (good or not)

when i use the word fair i could replace the word ethical without changing the meaning of my sentence... but i had never noticed their equivelancy.

(i was actually planning to ask the exact same questions as jesse but when i read his questions it led me to understanding what i believe to be Alonzo's point)

thanks for posting great comments everyone. it really helps me work through my own thoughts and arrive at better conclusions (i hope) then if i had only read the posts without the comments.

It seems to me that the concept of fairness ties in very strongly with the social contract, and tit-for-tat agreements.

In most circumstances, I think that the slogan "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his sacrifice or effort" encapsulates fairness quite well.

I wouldn't even consider "to each according his contribution" to be a maximal conception of fairness. After all, some people are just naturally gifted, by way of genetics and a wonderful upbringing, and hence only have to sacrifice a modest amount compared to other people.

And in some narrow circumstances, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is considered "fair", such as with providing healthcare, police, due process, clean air, clean water, etc.

About Me

When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to leave the world better off than it would have been if I had not existed. This started a quest, through 12 years of college and on to today, to try to discover what a "better" world consists of. I have written a book describing that journey that you can find on my website. In this blog, I will keep track of the issues I have confronted since then.